I must admit that I have been waiting for one of Gaius’s thoughtful posts to liven things up but I understand the rigors of the daily grind and children, so I’ll give you a rounding of what is happening in the news.
LoCo wants to close 4 schools they own outright, which will save 2 million a year in operating costs. Meanwhile, 68+million will go to LCPS for fiscal year 2015. The tax rate went down .05 cents and my assessment went up 100k. That means it will only cost me another $1,000 in taxes. What a deal. And they have cut back many services in savings already. Hmm. Where is that Silver Line?
–Fast&Furious……crickets.
–Benghazi……crickets.
–IRS……crickets.
–NSA……crickets.
–Immigration reform…Dem….active.
–Equal pay for women….Dem….active.
–Koch brothers…..Dem….active.
–Bloomberg 50 million towards curtailing gun rights….Dem….new.
–Holder and Obama targeted with racism…..Dem….active.
–ObamaCare……GOP….semi-active (becoming obscure with diversions)
We have a guy feeding cows on federal land who won’t pay the Feds grazing rights. It got heated and civilians are toe-to-toe with armed Feds. Was getting ugly and not over yet. Meantime Putin is land grabbing more of the old USSR while everyone else in the world wags fingers. Ever notice that when big wars bring down aggressors, that nations go into downsizing mode with their military. The focus changes and the eye goes off the ball. During that period of non-focus, aggressors re-emerge upon the scene. Isn’t what keeps them in check are strong military nations at the ready?
Gas is up right when I am getting ready to go fishing. Why are we spending $2 for crop and processing to make $1 of ethanol, just so we can continue to ruin the internal combustion engines that use it? And food is going up. We feed ourselves and others with wheat and corn staple, yet there isn’t enough because of what is wasted as “alternate fuel”. If we took the same amount of corn and distilled it, we could save money, have less vehicles on the road and feel good about being anally raped. I guess being drunk has advantages and savings too. But, heh, ALL food is up. Steak is up (because they feed them corn I guess). I see new taxes on all my utility bills. What’s up with that? What is more important:desert turtles (who don’t like solar farms) or smelts that are nothing more than Egret food? Ever notice where many of the supermarket meats come from lately? Do you really like brushing your teeth with toothpaste that comes from the same country of massive pollution and lead paint toys that cause suicide in supervisors?
And we don’t need another 4 years of a woman president. It has been too long since we had balls in the White House. And we need more testicles in Congress too. A poster here thinks we need to build locally politically and move up. I agree, but I also agree that with a good role model at the top working down that you meet in the middle and get there twice as fast.
Out of all this news (or lack there of), that situation in Nevada with the cows has got my focus. The guy is wrong in his understanding of things. Should it have gotten out of hand? Yes, because the government is involved and that has rallied the people. The underlying theme here is freedom from government and in this case it doesn’t matter if the issue is right or wrong. It is a cause for the people and it will escalate. Could be the beginning of the people’s revolution. Someone is going to die and then all bets are off. Citizens have reached their breaking point and need a circumstance. I’ll be fishing and watching. If need be I might need to extend my vacation and visit the southwest although I’m pretty sure the uprising will come to a neighborhood near me in time. Until then I’ll be starving, going broke with taxes and healthcare. If you feel for my plight and to keep me off the government dole, you may send contributions to me here at NVTH. I promise that any excess funds will be used to buy more worthwhile things…….like bullets.

Comments

Not all “crickets” with regard to the IRS. John Hayward has a nice article in Human Events (4-16-2014) concerning interesting IRS emails uncovered by a Judicial Watch FOIA request. It would seem that Lois Lerner at the IRS was in touch with both the DOJ and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) about the possibility of launching legal cases against some of the conservative (read “Tea Party”) organizations seeking 501(c)(4) status. Also an admission that liberal organizations were not targeted by the IRS people. And finally, an email from a peeved IRS manager in Cincinnati complaining that morale was very low out there because Washington was badmouthing his staff as a bunch of “rogues” in office cubicles and turning them into scapegoats.

Nobody was watching the watchers. One more bunch of bananas for the banana republic.

Written by ACTivist about 3 years ago.

I heard that after I did the post…..breaking news and all. Only problem is when you bring the DOJ in the limelite, you are doing it because of sour grapes and racism, which Holder will use as his defense/diversion. That and the part where he was “unaware” of what was going on because no one told him. Kinda like a bad series of novels where the storyline is the same; they just have different titles. Then he won’t be able to talk about anything because it is an “ongoing investigation.” Sheesh!

I am not sure that there was any significant DOJ follow through on this. At one point in the emails, Lerner appears to admit that the legal cases are probably not doable because the law is too “hard” — presumably too hard to get around. Of course, if an office of the DOJ was in contact with the IRS on this, which is what the emails indicate, Holder either has to admit he was informed that something was going on at IRS or claim that nobody on his staff told him about it — a poor hallmark of leadership, compounding his silence about who gave the final green light to Fast and Furious.

I would think that if IRS thought that groups were applying for tax exemptions and that they didn’t meet the criteria, it would be entirely appropriate to alert DOJ to the problem. The whole 501(c)(4) exemption is a joke. I have no problem at all with IRS giving these applications a close read. If they ever developed the cases far enough to support prosecution (because applicants had, to support their request for exemption, misstated the political nature of their organizations), it would be wise to include a sample of offenders from both extremes of the spectrum. My guess is that that would happen as the cases were built. However, during this time, there was a bumper crop of applications from the far right of the political spectrum, and relatively little activity from the left. So the raw numbers would be slanted decidedly in one direction. At another time, that might not be the case. A perfect world would be where every group trying to scam the exemption structure (and thus stealing from law-abiding tax payors) by claiming 501(c)(4) status for ineligible activities would see civil or criminal penalties, regardless of political orientation. Better yet, reform the Tax Code to eliminate the exemption.

Scout — As I recall, IRS has its own investigators. Show me a case where they found enough actual evidence against an applicant to go to DOJ. It looks to me like Lerner et al were on a fishing expedition, hoping they could get some ammo from either DOJ or the FEC to go after somebody from a legal aspect. It also looks like they got nothing. As Lerner said in one of the emails: the law was too “hard.” If IRS had actually had a valid case against any of those Tea Party or other conservative applicants, they would have had some explanations to help counter the current accusations — ergo, an easier escape from the scandal. But, no. Instead, they got the acting chief of IRS departing, Lerner clinging to the Fifth like a lifejacket, and IRS Cincinnati pissed that they were made scapegoats by the real culprits in Washington.

In other news, I see that new Dartmouth President Philip Hanlon has pissed all over the student parade at that venerable Ivy League institution. What a rap sheet! Sexual assaults; dangerous drinking as the rule rather than the exception; disregard for human dignity via hazing parties with racist and sexual themes; disgusting and sometimes threatening insults on the Internet; behavior outside the classroom which is debasing the human spirit. That’s what the man said. He also said he was going to clean it up.

Wonderful. Uplifting. God bless America and all that. However, I don’t think old Green is alone in this. They have plenty of company, I’ve heard, all across this screwed up country.

Written by Eric the half a troll about 3 years ago.

Many things are far better these days in that arena than they were in the good ole days, Wolv. Remember Animal House was in part based on a SAE house in Dartmouth. In an ironic twist, you can blame MADD and their 21 drinking age for the problem of binge drinking. Before they hit the scene “pre-gaming” was far from the norm.

Well, Eric, frat boy here from the “good old days” of the 1960′s. I posit you are absolutely wrong in some areas. Saw drinking but never binge drinking in our house or other houses. Don’t recall any youngsters in our circle going to the morgue from excessive use of alcohol. Got hazed but never like some of the young idiots do it these days. As for racism, our national frat was among the first to start a campaign for membership diversity, which wasn’t exactly easy back in the day. And, if you wanted to insult somebody, you had to do it face to face and risk a post-encounter period of looking for your teeth in the grass.

I wouldn’t blame MADD for the lunacy of modern youth. Those youth have to take the blame for their own foolishness. I’ ve got kids who now have their own kids, and my kids are concerned about sending their kids to the same university from which they graduated because they have found that student personal behavior is much worse now on campus than it was only 20-30 years ago. And I do not think that is an uncommon feeling among many parents.

Written by Eric the half a troll about 3 years ago.

So what was the drinking age in 1960s, Wolv? What was it 30 years ago? When I went to college we drank beer because we could buy it at a bar or drink it openly at any event. Aside from accidents, I know of no one sent to the morgue just from drinking beer. There was no need to pre-game with a bottle of vodka. That is responsible for much of the dangerous drinking that goes on. Unintended consequences.

There was a great deal more hazing and young men were put into dangerous situations because of it. That is far less prevalent these days. I can not speak to the racist issues but my boys are both in a fraternity and nothing of that sort is going on. They are a very respectable bunch.

Eric, the booze was available and used freely chez nous at party time. I don’t even remember the age limit in those days. But I think you will agree that the binge drinking seen now was not something seen very often in the “good old days.” At least, I never saw it. Nowadays it seems to be out there, as do the trips to the morgue, especially among green pledges. As for the hazing, agree that most of it was stupid and some was dangerous, but I think there is more out there now than we think. Our national has closed quite a few chapters in recent years for volating the national rules, including hazing.

Racism? Well, Hanlon said it exists at Dartmouth. I have seen chapters elsewhere slapped recently by their nationals and their schools for “theme parties” which were more than asinine, in my opinion. Who in his right mind hosts a black-face party these days? And then there was the “necktie” decoration on the Medgar Evers statue at Old Miss. Three jokers got their entire chapter banned from the campus by the school and the national.

Personally, I think Hanlon is on the right track.

Written by Eric the half a troll about 3 years ago.

“As for the hazing, agree that most of it was stupid and some was dangerous, but I think there is more out there now than we think. Our national has closed quite a few chapters in recent years for volating the national rules, including hazing.”

What has changed in this regards are the rules, Wolv. New rules and relatively strict enforcement has reduced the incidence of hazing.

Dartmouth may be on the right path in terms of laudable goals. But the methods they are considering seem ineffective at best. My sons’ college is NOT a dry campus and they provide freshman education on safe drinking practices (as did I). Moderation is the goal and the key and it seems to be effective. A truly rigorous academic environment also helps. The focus is NOT on the party although I can attest that they are clearly having a good time.

Whatever, but the 21 drinking age needs to go for beer and wine, IMO. It does more harm than good.

Eric — Happy to hear that your sons are having a good rather than negative experience in this regard. However, I still think we have a problem of personal behavior at many schools, especially the larger ones, public and private. If there were no significant problems of that kind at Dartmouth, I cannot imagine an Ivy League president making such a public utterance. And Dartmouth is both the smallest of the Ivies and far enough away from large urban areas not to have negative spillover from that direction — as Harvard seems to be having with sexual assaults on campus. Probably the best way to fight misbehavior in Greek life, in my opinion, is to have a national and alumni who interact closely with the chapters and the school management and coordinate action with the school against significant violations by individual chapters. I believe that is going on in the Ole Miss case right now.

And in Colorado, the madcap center of the American pot smokers’ world, the police busted up a drug ring selling weed to underage buyers. The perps were 10-year-olds in the 4th grade of a public elementary school.

There has been a tsunami of illegal aliens pouring across the border. You won’t hear the details on the local news. The community organizer has failed, he doesn’t have any idea that we are (were) a sovereign country with laws and borders.